Editorials

COLUMBIA – Two South Carolina lawmakers announced last week they are introducing legislation to provide for the continued protection of South Carolina natural resources for the next decade. Gathered with members of The Palmetto Land and Water Legacy Allia

By Phil Noble This is the second in an ongoing series about political corruption and ethics reform in South Carolina. This column outlines the origins, recent scandals and beginnings of efforts for ethics reform. Directly across the street from the Stateh

Let’s distinguish fact from fiction and separate out whining from winning. Vladimir Putin did not elect Donald Trump to serve as the next president of the United States. The American public did. Like it or not, Mr. Trump is our official President-elect,

By Phil Noble Folks in higher education are supposed to be smart – right? So, my question is why have they (we) in South Carolina allowed higher education to become a lower priority than it ought to be? There is not one simple answer because there is no

By Lee H. Hamilton There are a lot of dire predictions about our representative democracy out there. We’re just past a presidential election campaign in which candidates complained about a rigged political system. Now, commentators worry about the

By Jeffrey M. McCall, professor of communication DePauw University Greencastle, Indiana The year 2016 will go down as one in which Americans turned on the establishment and put a non-politician in the White House. The masses also rejected mainstream

By Phil Noble A year or so ago, I was driving around Charleston with a member of the S.C. Legislature talking about various people, problems and politics in the Statehouse. My friend is a long-time legislator and one of the most decent and honorable

By Phil Noble Over the last week or so, the same basic story has appeared in all the major newspapers around the state: economists have projected that we as a state (i.e. the legislature) will have an additional $446 million to spend over the next

By Lee H. Hamilton Franklin Roosevelt once said, “Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely.” He was talking about why education matters in a representative democracy, but it’s a safe bet that had he

By Phil Noble Recently, I was invited to speak to the Friends of the Edisto and I met Hugo Krispyn who lives on the headwaters of the North Fork of the Edisto. He wrote this about the dangers facing the Edisto and other S.C. rivers. Before pavement was

By Phil Noble This column is part of a continuing series on The New South Carolina, about the changes that are transforming our state. February 15, 1956, Silas C. McMeekin, President of the South Carolina Electric & Gas Company, got together over lunch i

By Dr. William Holland The election is finally over and of course there many people that are disappointed and yes, sadly we are still divided. However, if we could just try and work together, we can all benefit from the results of unity. The archaic

By Phil Noble In case you haven’t noticed, there are a lot of new folks moving to the Palmetto State. In fact, we rank second in the nation per capita after Washington state in the number of people moving to our state. A lot of these folks are from up

By Phil Noble I am writing this column before election day and most people will read this after the results are known. The pundits are predicting that Trump will carry South Carolina by a large margin and Clinton will win nationally by a narrow margin.

By Lee H. Hamilton Americans understand that our nation’s strength and security depend on its fiscal health. This may not be foremost on their minds right now, but rarely do I address a public meeting at which no one expresses concern about the federal